Growing up in Nazareth, Jane Follweiler spent lots of time at the Reichel home playing with friends, but it's also where she got her first glimpse of the funeral business.

Even at a young age, the mix of humanities and the sciences appealed to Follweiler.

"It really interested me," said Follweiler, now a funeral director and co-owner of Schmidt Funeral Home in Nazareth and Wind Gap. "I'm not the type of person who can sit in an office eight hours a day."

When she graduated in 1973 from Notre Dame High School, she was dissuaded from pursuing her dream as it was a male-dominated, generational profession. So, she studied elementary education instead.

Before starting the yearlong funeral services classes, students must finish two years of general education courses. In order to graduate, students must pass a national board exam. Then graduates must complete a yearlong internship and pass a state licensure exam.

Follweiler's internship at Schmidt turned into a career and a business. It's something she never imagined when Dale Schmidt begrudgingly hired her in 1988 and told her she was expected to do what the men did, including lifting caskets and bodies. Schmidt proved to be a wonderful mentor, just a little gruff on the outside, Follweiler said.

Follweiler is one of many women today reclaiming the female role in the burial process. In 1970, about 5 percent of mortuary graduates were women, according to Patricia Werner, an NCC funeral service instructor and Follweiler's business partner. In 2011, about 53 percent were women. At NCC this spring, 34 of the 47 students majoring in the program were female.

"It is the perfect blend of science, art, philosophy and history," said
Lea Svendsen, 30, of Allentown, an NCC graduate in the midst of her
internship where she's the only woman.

Historically, women were tasked with caring for the dead until the advent of embalming during the Civil War, Werner said. A Philadelphia directory listed "layers out of the dead" alongside midwives, physicians and dentists, she said.

"The layers of the dead were the predecessors to the undertaker, who we now call the funeral director," Werner said.

As embalming became more prevalent, caring for the dead became a business that often relegated women to minor support roles, she said. That's changed in recent decades.

Werner's classes are not filled with sons ready to inherit the family business. They are dominated by women, many with no family ties to the industry.

The funeral services industry as a whole is still predominantly male,
but the number of women entering the field is rising fast, said Tony
Moore, the new director of NCC's funeral service education.

"The shift follows our trends elsewhere in education," Svendsen
said. "Women are now outnumbering men completing college and in the workplace."

Some are turning to the profession as a second career, like Werner, who left a corporate career and bought the home with Follweiler before finishing school. Werner tells students helping one family is more rewarding than any accolades you can earn in the corporate world.

"I love it," she said. "I'm absolutely passionate about funeral services and I try to instill that passion in my students."

This is Svendsen's third
career but a great blend of them all. She has a degree in psychology and had to leave the Army due to an injury. She wanted to help people and working in a call center wasn't fulfilling enough.

"I've
always had a fascination with funeral customs and theology around the
world," Svendsen said. "Funeral services seemed like the natural
profession."

She's interested in working as a trade embalmer and volunteering her services to the federal disaster mortuary operations recovery team, which helps identify remains and recover bodies during disasters.

Others are attracted at a young age to the diverse mix the job entails from helping families cope with death to the science of embalming. All say they feel called to help others.

Kelsey Mendres, 20, of Easton, is about to start her funeral classes in
August and she's not concerned about entering a male-dominated
profession.

"I've always loved helping people and helping them
get through hard times," Mendres said, noting this is often the most
trying period of a person's life.

Students travel great distances to attend NCC's program and many live in the dorms. It makes locals, like Mendres, thankful to have such a program in their backyard.

Allentown resident Martha Swanson, 23, relocated from West Chester, Pa., to enroll in the program. She has a bachelor's degree in public relations but realized halfway through the program she didn't want to sit in an office all day.

Being raised by a strong Southern nurse, Swanson finds it exciting women are reclaiming their role in funeral services.

Swanson's mother recently met some older funeral directors in a restaurant in North Carolina. When she shared her daughter was studying to become a funeral director, Swanson said, they almost scoffed at her.

"I think there are people out there who think that women don't belong in funeral service," she said.